SYED HAMIDUL BARI Vs. STATE OF U. P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are 24 writ petitions out of which 22 are filed by individual petitioners and two writ petitions namely Writ-C No.642 of 2024 and Writ-C No.527 of 2024 are filed by 10 and 9 petitioners respectively. Out of them Mohd. Shafeek-Petitioner no.1 and Smt. Shahana-Petitioner No.5 in Writ-C No.642 of 2024 and Abdulla-Petitioner No.6 in Writ-C No.527 of 2024 are involved in present bunch of writ petitions. These 25 petitioners relate to large bunch of writ petitions regarding slum known as Akbar Nagar (I) and (II), Lucknow. The said slum situates along the sides of Kukrail river/nala and falls much inside the city. Petitioners, persons of resources, claiming themselves as slum dwellers, obtained stay orders from the High Court and also attempted to be heard along with actual poor slum dwellers. It was only during course of the argument, that this Court came to know that they actually have illegally occupied large pieces of land of State Government and raised multi-story furniture showrooms/workshops on the main Lucknow-Faizabad Road, or immediately at the back of first row of showrooms, are filing their GST and income tax returns and mostly are living in their own houses in posh or well developed, old settled residential areas/colonies of Lucknow and in most of the cases also owning other properties.

(2.) Looking into their GST and income tax returns, location and size of the land occupied and constructions raised by them and also other properties owned by them, their cases are segregated from the main bunch of actual poor slum dwellers and slum areas. Before coming to the submissions of counsel for the parties, the chart, provided by the petitioners on directions of this court, and also added to by the respondents, regarding the GST and income tax returns, area occupied, constructions raised, and other properties owned by these petitioners is as follows:-

(3.) In the said background, Mr. Sudeep Kumar, Advocate, Sri Anuj Kudesia, Advocate assisted by Sri Ratnesh Chandra, Advocate for the respondent, Lucknow Development Authority, as well as learned Chief Standing Counsel strongly raise preliminary objection, that, these persons are neither slum dwellers nor their properties fall in the category of a slum. They state that by concealing the aforesaid correct facts, with regard to their status, the location and nature of construction and the area occupied by them, they have, by giving false impression to the Court, obtained interim orders on parity. It was incumbent upon them to have approached this Court with clean hands, providing entire details about their status. They have wrongly represented before this Court as poor landless slum dwellers and in the garb thereof are trying to save their huge, illegal and unauthorised constructions on the government land.